Tuesday, May 4, 2010

How did that happen? That sneaky month just went ahead and ended on me without any warning. Time it seems, just slips by when you've got a lot going on.

Well, better late than never! Right?

Science cookie roundup #4!

This time we have so many terrific cakes that I can barely get away with calling it a "cookie roundup" but I'm going to anyway (because I can).

I baked the cookies pictured above (along with nearly 60 others) this month. I'm not going to go into detail about what they are exactly, since they're for a project that is still in the works. Still, they're my contribution to this month's round up. If you can guess what they are, geek-gold-star for you!

Let's get on to the baking nerdery...

Crissy made the following gorgeous science cake. So pretty that even if you have no idea what it depicts, you can still appreciate its handsome good looks.

"I'm currently a third year grad student focusing on cilia biology. I made this cake last year for one of my labmate's birthdays - it depicts the cross-section of a 9+2 cilium by transmission electron microscopy. I covered the cake in homemade marshmallow fondant, which I also colored and used for the design."

Kim sent me several batches of science themed baked goods, including this beautiful cake.

"The cake a bit more math-related than science, but it seemed right up your alley anyway. It is a normal white cake with basic frosting gone horribly nerdy. It was for an 80's themed birthday party, hence all the colors. Around the outside is the birthday girl's name spelled out in binary (ASCII) and in the middle is an equation for finding the probability of 2 people out of a group of n having the same birthday."

Statistics is very much up my alley. I loved it!

"One is a set of mole-shaped mole-assus cookies spelling out Avagadro's number. I made them for some nerdy boys I know in honor of Mole Day a few years back. The extra dough became some recognizable (and some not-so-recognizable) molecules."

"Our Neuroscience Club participated in the chocolate festival here at our university so I made this brain cake. I know its not a cookie, but I think it fits right in with all of the science-food fun! Its made of 3 layers of devil's food cake, carved into the dome shape and covered with homemade dyed fondant."

Molecular Biologist Carolyn sent me these mice cookies she made for her lab.

I really find it amusing how biologists love mice cookies, but when I show a biologist a petri dish cookie the general response is: "I can't bring myself to eat that!"

Sure petri dishes smell bad but do the mice really smell much better? I'm digressing here... on to the mice cookies!

It is making managing my daily emails a little annoying. So if you got lost in the crush and I missed you, send me an email today and I'll edit you in. If you're interested in being in the next science cookie roundup just send me an email to notsohumblepieblog@gmail.com and I'll share your baking nerdery.

I'm quite proud of the red blood cell cookies. Creating a 3-D biconcave disk shaped cookie took a bit of trial and error. Then figuring out how to frost without the icing pooling in the center took a few more attempts.

OH MY!!! Those are beautiful WBC cookies and the red blood cell is awesome! Basophils are my absolute favorite. You don't get to see that many in the laboratory, and when you do it's really bad for the patient.......*sigh* When I get around to making cookies I plan to make the rare "disgruntled" neutrophil.

I see a red blood cell, neutrophil, eosinophil, and a basophil!! Lymphocytes, monocytes? Platelets... or are those coming off of a megakaryocyte? Girl you got the differential represented! I'm diggin it!

love your blood cell cookies! i came to your archives tonight to look for ideas on frosting cookies. my med school class has our final exams next week, and we've just finished our first system: the blood. i thought bringing a variety of the cells we've been studying, normal and not -- so, some shistocytes and hyper-nucleated neutrophils in with all the normal RBCs, WBCs and platelet -- would be a wonderful way to end the semester. =)

Of all the cookies they were the easiest the make and decorate. Mind you, this is after I figure out how to shape and decorate them.

The normal outline and flooding technique didn't work, since it pooled. I think I settled on dipping the cookies into fairly thick icing and then smoothing it into the center with a spoon. The icing was still fluid enough to settle into an even surface, but not so fluid that it ran into the center of the cookie.